Messages

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Hmm, he looks awfully familiar...

[PC/Console/Mobile Ports / Re: Battle Princess Madelyn [PC/PS4/XBOX/] by Causal Bit Games (Chris/LoboDaMainMan)]

So...I purchased Battle Princess Madelyn ($20) with my GOG account today as general practice over Steam. I did learn Steam has an offline mode, but I do prefer the no-strings GOG installer executable model better where possible.

Well, my 8bitdo SNES GamePad is recharged, game is installed (man, installation so fast on nice new SSD drives, love it!) let's see when I take this for a spin!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Cat + PC Engine Duo = Bad]

The console starts up to the normal Super CD ROM 2 system boot screen. However when I put in a disc and press the run button, the CD drive doesn't spin up and after a short while I get an error message 'Please set disc.' The laser itself does start up as I can see the red light from it but again, the drive doesn't spin so it doesn't seem to matter much. I can't tell whether the lens can focus or not.

Ah, so the spin motor won't start. *Maybe* there's a chance for you to fix it yourself since the laser shows life.

You need to see if the motor gets power, maybe the board area that supplies the power was hurt by the fall or the motor itself.

I'd disconnect the power cable to the motor, bring a 5VDC source from elsewhere to power it, see if it spins. If not, the motor broke, you'd have to see about replacement... Perhaps even before that, try to boot it and measure the voltage at red/black wires at the motor (you'll have to hold the switch down to make it believe the lid is closed).

I dunno if any of our repair tech heads ever mentioned that motor failing, they certainly have spare laser units to sell and sprockets that are also known to fail.

So, if the motor works with external power, you gotta find out what went wrong where it connects to for its normal power supply. A crack in the board area that supplies it perhaps, maybe a reflow of solder on the power connection pins that the cable connects to, that sort of thing with any luck! You'd have to fully free the motherboard, have a look underneath.

That's about it, seems you might have a shot, but if you give up, Keith is right here to ship it off to and let him try, good luck either way!

Oh, and if it hasn't been recapped, that should be part of the repair deal!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: In-game symptoms of laser or bad cap problems?]

I have a PC-Engine Duo RX and all my HuCards work flawlessly without issue, and most of my CDs do. However, I have three games that seem to stop playing music at certain points (but the sound effects continue). Burning these games has no effect - the music drops out unexpectedly and doesn't come back. There are no strange audio artifacts... The music just stops.

You're very much in luck based on what you described, you should be able to fix this yourself!

Good thing about that is you avoid risk to the laser assembly which is fragile and can be damaged during shipping back'n'forth between you and somebody else (besides saving yourself the cost for repair/shipping).

As Keith mentioned, this is a lube problem, and I already did a write-up years ago to help:

"Re: REPAIR GUIDE - TG-CD: Grease is dried up. Symptoms and Solution."
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=7012.msg296648#msg296648

But quick recap: The laser's slider pole has ~25 year old dried-up grease at this point (as old as the console), the laser unit has lost agility as a result, so a good cleaning of the old grease with say alcohol, and application of new white lithium grease will do the trick!

I recommend freeing the slide motor (2 glued screws, it's tough) if you can which will let you move the whole laser unit freely, and also to clean/lubricate all sprockets, not just the pole, etc. In short, fresh grease needs to go everywhere there's old grease!

I assume you know you also need a 4.5mm game security bit which you can easily find on eBay to be able to open NEC consoles. The white lithium grease you can purchase at most any hardware store.



Funny thing, I used petroleum jelly when I had this audio cut off problem, it would work normally again for a year or two, before drying up and leading to the same problem. That was the poor man's way using something already in the home, but obviously not appropriate for a long-term solution. Somebody here once talked about a better grease, Molykote, what's used for joysticks, but I dunno if you wanna experiment just yet.

P. S.

Do *not* touch any of the 3 CD potentiometers, this should just strictly be a grease/lubrication problem.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Duo R - crackling Left Audio after RGB mod]

It was the last in the factory line so its capacitors will die last from previous models but I don't trust the notion they're not part of the bad, leaky batches of that era. I'd go ahead and do it since you got the unit open. Maybe start with all the capacitors at the audio circuit and power area first but with the full intent to replace every one.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Duo R - crackling Left Audio after RGB mod]

EDIT: I have no idea anymore, I double checked my mod-work again and the crackling goes away when I fully disconnect my RGB amp (between the HuC6260 and the inputs of the modboard)

Ah, interesting! The motherboard was fully recapped I assume BTW ??

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Cat + PC Engine Duo = Bad]

You'll have to provide more details on the exact problem if you want help to try something there before shipping it to one of our repair guys.

Do you get a boot screen, does the CD spin up ?? What error does the boot screen say ? The other things to check would be with the top open, but the sensor switch pressed down and booting in the dark to check if you see a red laser or not, and if the laser lens can move up/down to focus.

If laser is dead, will likely need replacement but if not, the 3 CD potentiometers will need adjustment. The laser is known to break with mishandling during shipping, happened to one of thesteve's customers.

[Off-Topic / Re: Game Sack]

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: TurboFont]

EDIT: I never believed this was anything but trollin',  , but 2x4 did PM me a sample test.

NightWolve, I'm such an ass, I didn't know these PMs were piling up!! So to answer your questions,  I have only given this font designer/ friend a few hundred bucks.  It's practically nothing but,  I always wanted to have the font.  I was excited about the idea of being able to recreate box art, label art,  manuals,  chip labels -- digitally and/or physically -- with total accuracy.  I think it's awesome when people here recreate physical aspects of things. I just wanted to make a contribution to that. Thanks for the support and for making some major contributions yourself over the years!

Heh, to be honest, I haven't believed you at all, haha!

I thought this was all weird trolling on your part...

Nah, s'all good, no need to send me anything. I'll check it out if you ever finish.

Trolling!! That hurts Nightwolve, but I suppose you have your reasons.  Just finishing up 3 or 4 "special characters" to gild the lily.  Here's an appetizer...  don't know how to embed images on this...


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AMVlqIVefJJ7YwzgBXhlFRz09LhTnz77/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J_6dIYPYar5ZbQcfDY932Yw1wHg708dL/view

[Off-Topic / Re: What are YOU watching on YouTube.com?]

Avengers 4: Endgame Trailer #1 has hit the digital airwaves.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Status of PC-FX fan translations]

So looks like Filler is the only other guy that ever finished a PC-FX fan translation/localization project until SamIAm came along with Zeroigar ??

I noticed sabre470 visiting recently, I could swear he played a role in the Dracula X project, but then I realized he was the one that started a PC-FX project on "Little Red Riding Hood Chacha" eons ago.

I found his old project page on WayBack. There was a WIP patch somewhere apparently.

wayback://brinkster.com:80/sabrevgc/

Oh man I haven't touched this translation for ages, I did even take Japanese lessons for 2 years to support that project and satisfy my curiosity of the language. Life got in the way, I guess. I did have fairly automated tooling for translating since it's mostly Hiragana and Katana. I've kept all the files for the project, though so I could resume it, time permitting.

I'm still deep in PC-FX and PC-FXGA though, if you haven't seen my blog cdromrom.wordpress.com

I said hello, he replied back with his new site and I'm guessing he's referring to the ChaCha project ??

Anyway, yeah, as mentioned in chat, I saw Filler's twitter posts about these dead projects, that's too bad. We just don't have the numbers for the kind of attention NES/SNES/Sega and other systems got, it's lucky enough to get PC Engine translations every few years, let alone a total failure like the PC-FX (which failed terribly even in Japan, in contrast to the successful PC Engine ancestor)!


In other news, looks like he's been working on a PC Engine HuCard game, "City Hunter."

https://twitter.com/romtranslator/status/1066781118479912960

I've successfully dumped a script for #CityHunter on the #PCE/#TG16. It was a PITA between having to insert the script values into the ROM so I could ID the 300-or-so kanji, to messing with the final dump encoding due to a kanji missing from JIS, but it wasn't TOO bad in the end. pic.twitter.com/IQGcPZ0TF3

— Filler (@romtranslator) November 25, 2018

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: SMS2PCE - Games SMS on PCE]

* You'll have to learn how to do that yourself if you really want to make it a reality. Making that clear upfront.

* There is only 1 man (Bonknuts/TurboXray) that previously did "hackulation" port projects like this but of NES games and that is precisely because the PCE/TG-16 CPU is almost the same 8-bit CPU as the NES, except it has a few Hudson enhancements. You could potentially learn from his work, but there really isn't anybody else AS talented that would have the motivation to code a "hackulation" layer for a SMS game... Bonknuts is mostly retired from hobby projects at present, he's actually done movies on occasion.

* He called these projects NES2PCE (as you made reference to). Upon review, seems he removed links.

https://pcedev.wordpress.com/category/nes2pce-2/

But I tried WayBack, and found some links for you. He/TurboXray includes the ASM files to build a .PCE ROM file you can use with an emulator or TurboEverdrive, so there is learning potential left behind.

Contra_pce_ver_0.35.7z
Castlevania_PCE_ver_0.44.7z
megaman_098_hu.zip
(ENIX's Dragon Warrior exists somewhere too)

I used an old copy on WayBack to find those ROMs and it appears they're still on his server, so they work, but here's the WayBack link to look around yourself:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120604004925if_/http://pcedev.wordpress.com:80/downloads-and-links

I also checked with SuperPlay our link master, and he has one link that collects them all, so here's that:

https://www.tg-16.com/superplay/MISC/pcedevnes.zip

Anyway, 99% sure it'll never happen, but Bonknuts represents the ONLY such port attempt known (Oh right, somebody did Super Mario Bros. too, you can Google for that) so if you wanted to learn, that's where you'd start.

Get the source code of a SMS emulator, port it to PCE Assembly, that would be the other piece to it. The Sega CPU is totally different, a Z80A, no clue on the technical complications of porting a SMS emulator to run on a Hudson HuC6280 CPU.

If you have no programming experience, just hoping somebody else does it, you're wasting your time as I said at the start, and you're better off asking at romhacking.net.

[General Gaming / Re: Was given an Xbox 360. What do?]

You could. Set it on fire.  lol. Jk.

I hear blow dryers are useful for console maintenance...

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

I was randomly hound-harassed/stalked today by the crazy butthurt psychotic loon pictured above with that shirt in the #Yuki discord chatroom... Sarumaru endorses their extortion troll tactics, sad to say...   To be clear, I do not negotiate with or kowtow to "any-means-necessary" extortionist saboteurs/bullies, and some of what we had here, "forum terrorists," (as White Supremacist DarKKKobold coined them, haha) but JohnPhile, Ryley "NoSexGex" Reynolds, AetherButt, the DildoPhile Dicktator and his DildoKobolds as well as some others never figured that out months ago...

So, who exactly is the above embarrassing loser in that "shirt" you might ask? A petty dramaqueen troll formerly known as "jlued686" (JohnPhile Luedtke) who later proclaimed himself "KingDrool" at some point (progressive ego you understand) if that rings a bell.

All he primarily did here at PCEFX the last ~3 years is rant/rave/screech/scream-at-the-sky about Donald J. Trump's very existence (Orange Man Bad! Orange Man Bad!!!) which drives him bitterly deranged to no end (Thanks Trump!)... That's pretty much all I can remember him for, besides being a vicious, wound-tight bully that trolled me for not liking PCE sports games or something, and for being a republican, etc.

Seems he was alerted by another preexisting troll in the #Yuki chatroom of my visit (Psycho Punch or Gex), as was Psycho Arkhoe (The Greatest PCE Community Saboteur, 2 PCE groups/1 PCE Kickstarter by my count were sabotaged by his bitterness, immaturity, arrogance, envy, jealously, & bullying nature...), both of whom had *never* posted in it, so they only arrived to tag-team troll one target (me) of their unhinged wrath (>6 months well after the dramastorm THEY instigated had passed). It was transparent to anyone with half a brain.

John approached his hounding trying to shoehorn passive-aggressive posts first, followed by playing the usual nerd cliche: he projected his virginity on me (claiming he's seen a vagina), blamed me for his own bullying, harassing, called me an a$$hole (heh, no self-introspection, that's for sure!), pretended to enjoy me telling him what a POS he was directly, etc. It was pathetic to watch his desperation for me to acknowledge his miserable, disgusting existence as he continued to poison a chatroom with his raging butthurt that he had never posted in solely due to learning of my visit... Yep, Psycho Nintega clone-confirmed!

Clearly the cyber-bully is obsessed way way too much about me, a videogame forum, so I say, step away from the keyboard before you fully become Nintega Part II, wipe that shit down with chlorine, go out, get some fresh air, take some walks, get laid buddy (pay for it if you have to!), i.e., get a life - IN GENERAL - cause you clearly don't have one running around wearing DuoDildoDoxPhile t-shirts to honor your destructive doxxing pal!!! Stop hangin' around creepy "dildo/game-huggers" and cutting videos with them (by that I mean tweak the freak with his pierced lip ring, ugh), that might help too, John! (I exclude Esteban/Dan of course).

Overall, I felt the stalking, dox-defending, hound-harasser is VERY confused, outright delusional about how the actions of Nulltard/bullity/insanity/toxicity/doxxity and his gang damaged this forum! He has deluded himself to believe he can pass the blame to me, that the shear act of repetition & feigned outrage, while covering for all the inbetween harassment him/his allies have committed (that would justify their re-banning ANYWHERE!), will establish it as historical fact...

Essentially, he hopes to deflect/cover historical blame away from his friend, the libelous, doxxing spam-terror, Captain DildoPhile, who f*cked up my home phone number worse than ever in buying up domains (2) to link a dox job at a place that encourages REAL physical stalking/contact on their targets... That's who Nulltard formed an alliance with, it's a site that also reportedly caused a suicide, not that these lunatics would give a damn when the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" takes root... Was it worth it creeps ?

In hypocritical rage he ended his "proud" PCEFX membership by screeching at Aaron to delete his account (and Josh's) after I emailed him to stop his lying conspiracy that 20k Necromunster posts were deleted because lying hack BlackTiger suddenly pretended the search feature doesn't work for him.... He protested 2 "unsolicited" emails, portraying himself a "victim" of ~1000 emails by generalization propaganda, yet he was one of the harassers that did exactly that to Aaron months before hoping to sabotage my relations/friendship (Aaron reported ~daily angry messages by Email, Twitter, Facebook, PM, etc)... Incredible!

So yeah, the bitter, raging, stalking, unhinged loon now likes "unsolicited" visits, contact, harassment, etc. when HE does it, even on somebody else's chat property to engage a target of his unhinged wrath! It's targeted hound harassment 101, stalking me to any/all PCE groups to bark in rage, still hoping to extort/bully/browbeat me down to a different outcome here or just sadistic satisfaction (if he feels that's all he has left). So, um, are you're saying hypocrisy by an unhinged loon is supposed to be shocking ? Yes, I know, I'm just laying it out for the record! He's a classic "Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do!" fail!

It's almost like ANTIFA thuggery, I go to a restaurant, a store, or some event, next thing I know, Psycho John and the DoxPhile crew show up, they phone over more of their gang to stop by, sit near or next to me, start acting stupid, raging, heckling, yelling, etc. They DO have my home address, folks, which was passed around in the DoxPhile . com/chat, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities... Dude is crazzzy hateful, no doubt, he took his trolling to live YouTube video level like Nulltard at the MGC and Nintega long before that!

Anyway, we wish DramaQueen JohnPhile all the best at his new rage-based PCE forum and hope he'll eventually get the mental help that he needs... We certainly hope he hasn't ventured out of his basement wearing DildoPhile t-shirts (or hats, like Josh on EVERY GameHugger video), but bad habits are hard to break, we understand... DoxMaster provocateur/troll and White Supremacist "DarKKKobold" once mentioned mommy and daddy had to hire him a therapist, maybe seek his advice, John ?? Just a thought, I mean look at the *fantastic* results with him, that was money well spent! It could change your life buddy, ya never know!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Turbo duo sound issue. Capacitors changed op amps are fine.]

The Steve helped me out. turned out to be corrosion on c322 to amp 503 and ground.

Cool, he's still got it!

It's good to have these cases documented somewhere for others to search for in the future.

I'm torn between DIY or just sending it to a pro and not wasting my time biting off more than I can chew; you have to recognize your limitations and not go too far. I still have a full capacitor replacement job to perform on my Turbo Duo, and I'm worried if something like these kinds of issues happens before that.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Turbo duo sound issue. Capacitors changed op amps are fine.]

Funny enough, I passed this along to thesteve, but Nunhunter already knew him on Facebook and he was already trying to help, heh.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: SOLD OUT: PCE/Turbografx RGB THS7374 amps and cables]

You can fix this by lifting that leg.  Here is pic with an arrow pointing to the pin that needs lifted

I found it easiest to just de-solder that side of the IC, lift/break off the leg, then re solder that side down.

That's too bad, one little mistake on what looks like an otherwise professionally-designed/built board.

[General Gaming / Re: Was given an Xbox 360. What do?]

Ah, I see, yeah, WiFi is an add-on option to the 2005 model, but the later S and E revisions included it. Worse, the first add-on only supported the g protocol max, just like PS3 which is half the speed of the 100 mbit Ethernet port and it IS kinda painful in response time compared to a wired connection as I saw with my 4K smart TV...

I went to the extra trouble to buy Cat7 cables for 2 TVs, my PC, MagicJack VoIP, and other shared router because the performance was just better and if you have a modem/router combo you know from experience the WiFi portion tends to crash while wired ports will still work.

Smart protip is to buy a power timer like for Christmas lights, set it for nightly off/on cycles at 4:30am when everyone is asleep so the router can reboot daily. This will save you lots of headaches, yes, even a good new WiFi router needs daily reboots to remain stable. New ones have a feature in the BIOS to set a daily reboot too, but I still recommend a power timer at your electrical outlet for full shutdown, startup cycles, for your modem too if separate.

WiFi routers are practically full computers now that come with 1.4 to 1.8 GHz duo-core CPUs and have complex OS systems that crash as well as a Windows PC does, so just random FYI.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Pia and zeroigar translations]

It's alright, we passed Tobias CD bootlegs around here and fan-made repro/bootleg HuCards, it'd be hypocritical to cry about CD-R help.

My first bit of advice is learn to use ImgBurn, it really isn't that hard... Just make sure to start it with Administrator Rights if you're on Windows 7.

https://www.ysutopia.net/software/ImgBurn.zip

You rip your originals to a BIN/CUE, follow patch instructions and just burn that image right back...

Where are you failing in this process exactly ???

All else fails, I suppose you can bother Bernie or Jodi on Facebook to make you some CD-Rs for shipping.

https://www.facebook.com/jodi.whetham
https://www.facebook.com/bernard.lindell
facebook .com/TrashKlown

[General Gaming / Re: Was given an Xbox 360. What do?]

Now there's a question you don't see often in a PCE forum: "I got a free Microsoft XBOX 360, what do I do with it !???"

Wish I could help, but my last NG console was PS2, heh. I faded out from the buy-new-console/library thing right about there.

Quick look at the specs shows it has both WiFi and an Ethernet port. I always recommend a good cable (cat7 is cheap on eBay, stick with that) to your router if possible because the lag isn't worth the trouble, especially on a smart TV or the PS3 (which I once borrowed from my renter to troubleshoot WiFi connectivity) if they only support WiFi 802.11g and not the later 'n' protocol as most modern phones do.

Looks like it's better than the PS3 which could only connect with the slower WiFi 'g' protocol on my router as I discovered with testing. I had set my router to 'n' only mode for max speed and that's what caused the connection failure for an older WiFi device like PS3.

Anyway, good luck. I think there was a SquareEnix game that looked interesting, something I would've wanted but its name escapes me right now. Bernie was a big XBOX fan BTW, he would've had some recommendations, but alas he's a creature of Facebook now too...

[Off-Topic / Re: What are YOU watching on YouTube.com?]

What I want in a martial arts flick, Matrix-level Yuen Woo-Ping choreography!

Master Z: Ip Man Legacy

[Off-Topic / Re: Hudson fans might want this]

You mean "Konami fans," we have to say we're Konami fans in the context of Bomberman now, don't we ?? ;)

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: WTB HuCard sleeves]

I figured the HuCard bootleg guys would be the first place to try, I asked around for ya but no dice: turbokon said he ran out, Jodi isn't much available ATM, a few others didn't know... sparky only sells manuals/boxes AFAIK.

You'll need to keep trying on eBay, turbokon said there used to be a guy there that sold some, but he can't be found now.

EDIT: Keith said he uses baseball card sleeves as alternatives, these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/233021827826

EDITx2: Scratch that, Jodi got back to me, says he has some that are like the originals. He's mostly a creature of Facebook, so you can contact him here: https://www.facebook.com/jodi.whetham

[NEC Console Resource / Re: Lurking Canadian has Emerged from the Shadows...]

Heh, welcome Andrew! I didn't know you had done business with Keith, that's good.

I sort of unintentionally coaxed Andrew into an introduction because I messaged him to compliment his love of lurking and browsing our long illustrious forum history... ;)

We do have a long time member on here from Halifax, plus a few other great Canadians on here as well.

Yep, like Dave Shadoff: producer of Kisado TG-16 Region Adapter, my Ys IV localization project teammate/co-programmer/co-dev, and the pcecp.com co-dev, plus the Motteke Tamago fan localization project (and others), etc. Technically Chris Covell is a Canadian export too that landed in Japan to teach.

I tried to get my friend Chris Obritsch to stay, we had him only for a short while, he goes way back to my original PC Engine forum home (RIGG/Retro ISO Gaming Guild), but alas he's "too cool/famous" for us "ruffians" now that he's in the Kickstarter big leagues with his Battle Princess Madelyn game... He was known as "Buckets" LoboDaMainMan if that rings a bell back then. We had no idea whatsoever he'd become a successful videogame developer since he was the joker of the forum.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/603930/Battle_Princess_Madelyn/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/causalbitgames/battle-princess-madelyn/

Anyway, yeah, there are a few other noteworthy Canucks around.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

For American games,
- Just finishing up a run through Cosmic Fantasy 2 again (this time, with the "Un-Worked Designs" patch)
- Next up will be Exile/Exile 2 - again with the unworked designs patches to return difficulty to the original - maybe this time I'll be able to complete Exile 2 !

I heard about those "Un-Working Designs" patches at romhacking.net I recall...

I forgot about what the Cosmic Fantasy 2 one does, I don't recall ever having a problem with the game, and I don't think I care if it was some spiteful protest at WD anyway. The WD haters got way too fanatical over the years...

As for Exile 2, I know people complained about the difficulty. I beat both Exiles pretty much as soon as they arrived from Turbo Zone Direct in a couple of days. I didn't really have a strong reaction to the difficulty as some did because I saw it was very easy to grind/level up: I just took an adjustable wrench, tightened it down on the sword button with turbo active, positioned Sadler where enemies would just keep spawning from right-to-left in a straight-forward manner, turned off the TV, "let it ride" and some hours later, I was fully leveled-up, ready to beat the final boss with just a little bit of basic strategy... The End. ;)

Is that cheating ?? I dunno, in those days I cared more about the story and EXP grinding just hurts my fingers, wastes my time, so I wasn't above using a trick or two to skip past all of that if it was available. Guess Victor Ireland didn't really iron out all issues to stop renters from being able to beat his localized games over a weekend and avoid paying full price to buy/own the game (which is why he said he deliberately tried to increase the difficulty in his batch of products)...

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Garbage Pail Kids sticker giveaway if Bernie doesn't want them. 176 in total. I might spot the shipping if I like or owe ya, if not, you pay it. Dunno if anyone here would want them, but I wanna get rid of them.

Now come on man you know me well enough to know I'd like to have these heh-heh.

What do you want for them? Or PM me.. whatever works 

Oh really ? Sorry brother, but Bernie Bro already got back to me with his shipping address in having decided that he'll take them. I'm gonna stop by the dollar store to see what kind of little shipping box or packet I can use later today.

I owe him for a lot of stuff he shipped to me over the years (Tobias bootlegs) and giving me paid freelance work in the past too.

I knew he was a fan from professing love of that movie they made of it eons ago and he Facebook-shared some sticker images in the past too I recall. ;)

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Garbage Pail Kids sticker giveaway if Bernie doesn't want them. 176 in total. I might spot the shipping if I like or owe ya, if not, you pay it. Dunno if anyone here would want them, but I wanna get rid of them.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Need help with repairing a PC Engine GT]

It's great to hear that you have an expert on hand when you need it. I suppose he would know how to remove those blobs I mentioned earlier.

A hot air gun to soften it a bit perhaps and very careful use of a razor blade. That's about the only technique I ever heard of/seen.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Just added to my BluRay collection this Black Friday season, got 4K BluRays of 2 of my favorite movies (would've been cool to find Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde in Tron: Legacy on 4K BR as well).

I was looking for Gigabit WiFi Routers to upgrade again, and possibly cordless headphones for use with my TV, but I didn't find anything that really caught my interest and it looks like I gotta go hunting on eBay (will keep Cyber Monday sales in mind when I do).



Only $10 (BestBuy) and $9 (Target) respectively. T2 could be had at BestBuy for $8, but they were COMPLETELY sold out in the first 2 hours the stores opened in a 250 mile radius of me... Only Target had 4 copies left, 3 of which were missing the cardboard sleeve for some reason. I have a tradition of collecting most Carolco movies in almost all formats, I still have T2 on VHS somewhere plus DVD/SkyNet LE BluRay, and Total Recall on LaserDisc/DVD/BluRay/etc.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Need help with repairing a PC Engine GT]

Has anybody here done a recap using tantalum capacitors (instead of the oil-based ones) ?
Theoretically, they should have a better lifetime - and if/when they do fail, they wouldn't leak anything out causing other issues on the board...

Yep, "thesteve," our professional resident electrical engineer has!

Below is a TurboExpress PCB he used a mix of tantalum and also ceramic capacitor replacements on (although I have less trust for high uF value ceramic):

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?msg=273031
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?msg=182962
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?msg=223168



A key discovery he made is getting rid of the hum in the audio of a Turbo Express. I dunno if you ever noticed that, it's more blatantly obvious if you use headphones and pause a game, you'll hear a pretty significant hum which was widely enough known among PCE/Turbo fans.

Steve said you could only target the 4 power related capacitors with just tantalum to also get rid of it, but I feel it's all risky if you're not a pro and don't really know what you're doing with no understanding of the physics...

The different behavior could cause problems as it did for me when I tried all ceramics on my SNES, the Composite amplifier circuit went crazy, it worked normally again only with original electrolytic capacitors, so beware when moonlighting as an EE...

yes a full aluminum cap replacement is in order.
you can use aluminum, ceramic or tantalum caps as replacements.
note the 10uf smd cap to the right of the switch will also kill video

He seems more trusting, but there you go. He's always willing to give Pro-Tip advice in PMs if you message him.

If these tantalum capacitors are better how come no seem to be using them? Or are they just that much more expensive?

Yeah, they're more expensive as Dave said. They have different properties, which Steve has mentioned on occasion like less resistance to ripple current. Your Turbo Duo has them on the underside/bottom of the PCB, no known reports of failure, while the topside is mostly the electrolytic standard as expected.

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Blazing Lazers, can't go wrong in always having that in a collection of legendary shooters!

Quick FYI, krik always partakes in Black Friday sales for his line of Everdrive Flashcarts:

https://krikzz.com/store/

[Off-Topic / Re: Husband/wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for ROM sites...]

ITSA ME, LAWSUIT!

Ha, someone should meme that line with a photo of Mario stomping on this couple where $12 million flashes on their heads post-stomping and maybe also show photos of famous ROM sites getting stomped on that buckled under fear removing all ROMs, not just Nintendo ones!!

I doubt it ends with this ridiculous amount, they have the appeal process of course. It's absurd to hold them responsible like this when they just got ROMs from other sites and have no connection to the manufacturer of ROM copier devices that allowed dumping a NES/SNES cartridge to disk in the first place those many eons ago late 90's...

Shame, looks like the good ole days of ROM collecting are going extinct. Back to shady IRC groups trading with other dudes to build your ROM collection then ??

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Biggest find ever]

Did we scare Ryan off ?? This was the first time he posted in 2 years, then went back to lurker mode again...

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Need help with repairing a PC Engine GT]

Yeah, Digikey can sell you surface mount models like what's there but everybody would recommend to switch to the regular ones since they're easy to desolder if you ever have to do it again and they're bigger, better, will last longer since more fluid, etc.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: REPAIR GUIDE - Super CD-ROM² Pot Adjustment]

Not sure where people are getting there lenses from.
I buy all my hop-m3 and kss-210B lenses from dalbanicorporation.
https://m.ebay.com/itm/KSS-210B-Generic-Sony-Replacement-Laser-Lens-KSS210B-Optical-Pickup-CD-VCD/120865809030?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2l

Wow, I didn't notice this last time, but I have a connection to Dalbani Electronics/Co! When I was 16-17 in the early 90's I started VCR repair for a resale shop I hung out at and Dalbani + MCM Electronics we're my suppliers for parts like a VCR head puller, belts, that sort of thing.

I still didn't have a CC yet so I'd use my dad's and just pay him cash next time around after ordering over the phone with their catalog. Heh, old skool.

I recall I got their info from a professional TV/VCR repair shop, a Korean owner (somewhat at part of Korea Town) who let me jot their number down after asking where he buys his stuff (MCM too). He fixed a RCA TV for me before he eventually went out of business.

Side note: I bought the NES/SNES security bit later after spotting it for sale in such catalogs (MCM, pretty sure) (that was fun!). That was a big deal, I was the only one in my neighborhood that had it, heh. I did misplace it at some point and thought a friend stole it, but it got lost under a magnetic dish holder, just didn't notice for many years...

Coincidentally, I still had all my old Dalbani/MCM catalogs in storage until this summer but I decided it's time to get rid of lots of stuff along with my EGM, GameFan, GamePro, Nintendo Power magazines. Anything I can't sell was tossed in the recycling bin or donated to the local library like my CS programming books. Ah well, time to start letting stuff go left around for nostalgia's sake...

Anyway, good to know they're still around and now on eBay. Yeah, they're still based in Florida, I remember that too.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Need help with repairing a PC Engine GT]

Yep, full capacitor replacement time! Don't be cheap, remove every one, clean off the leaked electrolytic fluid very well, and replace with fresh ones. Hope that the fluid didn't damage/corrode any trace, via, etc and you might be able to get it up and running again with just some basic soldering skills.

[Off-Topic / Re: Divisive Topic.]

I wouldn't let some dude jot down the codes while browsing the DVD cases in the store. They can easily solve that just by storing the code paper along with the disc.

I remember a video store like this also, the DVD cases were on the shelves for you, you'd pick one for purchase, bring it to the counter, and they'd find the actual disc in storage. It closed a few years ago though as will happen to all movie rental stores, not just because of Internet streaming, or piracy, but also thanks to Redbox and their $1 rental rates for old timers that still go the physical media route.

[News / Re: PCEngineFX Change/Update Log]

** 11/24/2018 **

* It's official: Viewing/Spying on PCEFX with Free Proxy Web Servers is ~100% disabled... This reduces options for ban-evading, spying, harassing, cyberbully psychos (e.g. Psycho ClodBusted, No-Sex-Gex, Punch, and Nintega if he ever actually learned how).

** 11/18/2018 **

* Visitor logging/history added to PCEFX Chatbox. Normally only available to admins, but not anymore. Expect more tweaks in the future.

* Registration with Free Proxy Web Servers for spam harassment/vandalism was blocked. This deals with registration vandalism & other type by known psychotic saboteur trolls/cyberbullies e.g. Psycho Nulltard, Nintega, No-Sex-Gex, Punch, Joe Tucci, etc. This complicated port-scanning proxy block is limited just to registration as it's slow.

Disclaimer: Details/History below. Avoid reading if you don't care for bitter dramaqueens and their embarrassing troll/sabotage history...

History: PCEFX Registration vandalism began in April 2018 when Psycho John Nulltard's sock puppet "ButtSniffMcNippleGrinder" account was deleted (yes, how creative!). He also had an alt/fake "Xak" account for past shenanigans that we know of. Upon deletion, he quickly registered again to spam insults with an email like "Nicolas.Retardicus@cuck . com" and no further known spamming by him occurred since... Nulltard is thusly the 2nd known PCEFX Registration spam vandal besides helping to destroy/sabotage the forum because of his own PCE forum obsession (1st place prize goes to Psycho Nintega obviously for his years of dedication to harassment of this forum)...

After Joshua the TurboTrollX-16 (his CPU core may be 8-bit, but his true colors are in 16-bit, don't let this bully fool ya!) created a proxy harassment thread on his Facebook account to angrily incite members to take troll actions against this forum to make me ban you, collect a screenshot of the ban message and share in it his thread, Joe Tucci answered the call with CTRL+V paste mania and pathetically lied about it, claiming all he did is "type big brother..." What he actually did is create multiple posts while holding CTRL+V down dumping MASSIVE spam on the forum that was tough to delete because the DELETE button is at the bottom of the page... I was incredibly disgusted, it was stunning! The manchild was quickly blocked/banned and is NOT ever welcomed to return here again!

However, after the in-forum spam vandalism to purposefully get banned ended, it moved to the PCEFX registration system starting with what I call the Joshua Jaeger Homophobes who had Illinois IP addresses at first (like Joe Tucci) but later began using proxies as I banned their IP ranges... 

https://i.postimg.cc/xj7YzkR1/Joshua-Jaeger-Homophobes.png

So this spam/insult vandalism of the PCEFX registration system in some way has continued since April by at least Psycho ClodBusted, No-Sex-Gex, Punch, Nintega and possibly someone else... Hard to tell, certain things are unique to Punch who doesn't type anything but "Brazil," while Psycho Nintega and ClodBusted will write some kind of crazed troll rant depending on what information they can use in the present...

In this latest example, the psycho-stalker-spammer is spying on random members like JoeQuaker, attempting to compare his writing style with NightWolve, ultimately formulating a crackpot conspiracy theory that JoeQuaker is an alt sock puppet account of NightWolve's (i.e. JoeQuaker=NightWolve). Necromancer and other saboteur trolls in their own spying started a conspiracy theory that NightWolve was "doing lots of things" to "fake" forum activity (and hide bannings) to combat their open/transparent sabotage efforts to silence/kill the forum as part of some sort of scorched-earth extortion effort... This troll seems to be talking to Necromancer in the discord chat he hijacked I suspect given his rant, but I'm not sure if it's Psycho ClodBusted, Gex, or another manchild in the suspect list (Correction: It was all Ryley "Gex" Reynolds who then crank-called me endlessly when Aaron closed the forum...)... Ah well, what's the difference ? They're all batshit crazzzy! :/

https://i.postimg.cc/5twQpXhm/PCEFXPsycho-Spammer-Reg-Vandal.png

Anyway, this ends their desperate jumping from proxy after proxy after proxy, and actually bragging about it, telling me I'll never be able to stop them, etc. Who knew we had trolls here more crazy than Nintega, including Necromancer ?? Really sad...

[Off-Topic / Husband/wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for ROM sites...]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-13-husband-and-wife-must-pay-usd12m-to-nintendo-for-running-rom-sites

Arizona couple have been ordered to pay Nintendo a whopping $12.23m (£9.5m) in damages for running a pair of sites which offered pirated ROMs.

Jacob and Cristian Mathias admitted copyright and trademark infringement for operating LoveROMS.com and LoveRetro.co until July this year, when Nintendo intervened.

The sites, registered under Mathias Designs, a company set up by the husband and wife, offered pirated versions of games such as Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong Country, Pokémon Yellow and Super Mario World.

Both websites were pulled offline when Nintendo threatened legal action, and replaced with a notice saying they were undergoing maintenance.



The eyebrow-raising $12.23m ruling, originally discovered by TorrentFreak, has likely been set as an example to deter others. (And indeed, a number of other ROM sites have since vanished from the internet.) Whether the Mathiases will have to actually pay the full amount is not known, however - other cases have been quietly settled behind the scenes for much less.

On paper, though, this is a huge win for Nintendo. The couple have taken down their sites, admitted culpability, agreed to pay damages, and must now also relinquish any Nintendo games and hardware still in their possession.

Head to LoveROMs.com now and you'll be greeted with a simple message, titled "Apology to Nintendo":

"Our website, LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co, previously offered and performed unauthorised copies of Nintendo games, in violation of Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co acknowledges that it caused harm to Nintendo, its partners, and customers by offering infringing copies of Nintendo games and has agreed to cease all such activities. To access legitimate Nintendo games online, please visit www.nintendo.com for information about the Nintendo Game Store."

Nintendo gone  -earth...

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Biggest find ever]

That's a great price for that game.

But what about all the children in Africa he could've fed instead with $8,500 ???? ;)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Biggest find ever]

Oh, you're Ryan Genno ? I didn't know you had an account here! Good to have ya dood!

Video: I skipped to the end, he replaced his TG-16 Space Harrier with better copy...and he blew $8500 (according to price sticker) on...a sealed Magical Chase...

 

Congrats I think ???? ;)

Go big or go home I guess ???

P. S. I can beat your Super Star Soldier record any time, by the way!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Games that were first on the PC Engine and ported to SNES/SFC or genesis]

PCE: Startling Odyssey
PSX: Startling Odyssey I: Blue Evolution

Hmm, I didn't know SO got ported to PSX, wanna find screenshots now, see what it looks like on there.

As to the experiment, you already mentioned Dracula X, an obvious one. I'd have to get to my PC to look at the PCE catalogs some time to see if something jogs my memory, but drawing a blank on anything else.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The 2 different motherboards of the original PC Engine.]

Oh, I didn't know that. I kinda thought he occasionally posts on it and did create it. But looking at the About page, it looks like it's not his writing. Is it yours ?

EDIT: Hmm, if I had to guess, it's Paul... That would explain some things...

[Off-Topic / Re: What do you depise AT THIS MOMENT, literally....]

I assume this is some eco friendly-save the planet type initiative. What about the plastic lids tho?

Well, they added a 5 cent tax per plastic water bottle, so a 40 pack has a $2 dollar tax but thankfully it's limited to Chicago and I can drive to a neighboring Walmart in a suburb (usually Skokie) to escape it...

Doesn't seem they wanted to go with a tax-it-to-hell approach like smokes, alcohol, pot, etc.; in the case of plastic straws though, abolition/prohibition is more their tune here... Worth noting we do have special blue bins dedicated only for paper, plastic and steel can recycling too...

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: 16 game lot . bunch of classics]

Interesting stuff in that lot but I own several.

[Off-Topic / Re: What do you depise AT THIS MOMENT, literally....]

I'd add nervousness about the outcome of today's election...

I voted no on a proposition to ban plastic straws, an attempt to import a Commiefornia policy here in Chicago and I think I'm gonna lose, but who knows, I may be surprised, we did repeal the sugar soda pop tax after enough anger made our voices heard...

[Off-Topic / Re: Secret Santa 2017]

Necromunster rage quit in a psychotic Nazi Nazi Nazi cunt cunt cunt yelling tantrum believing he is above being moderated and worked feverishly to sabotage this forum behind the scenes afterwards in revenge (he hijacked some discord chat)...

If we had normal moderators he would've been banned long ago with Psycho N1ntega/Arkhan frankly and I never would've had to deal with him, it's just that he forced the situation with his unhinged, vicious behavior over the summer...

I will never let another crazed cyber-bully like him take off on this forum again and it appears he never logged in again to eventually allow an appeal to his mute ban, so good riddance! He made it clear after the 1 week temp ban he's just gonna keep on harassing me, so his rage quit is fine by me...

I don't really want that kind of intimidating personality chasing noobs off, throwing his weight around, spying on me, and after witnessing his outside organized tag team trolling to run me off the forum, the crazed conspiracy theories he emailed me, I don't care to ever speak to him again... He's batshit level crazy and hateful! So I'm comfortable with a permaban but it's moot since he quit anyway...

Anyway, this looks like it was a manipulative bump/question just like the Joshua/BlackTiger attempts to remind us of his Musings thread which is supposedly so great a contribution it should forgive all of his crazed excesses/trolling, so thread locked. He both quit and is banned, assuming you didn't really know that already. Generosity should only go so far to deflect/excuse from being a crazy bullying bastard...

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Exile Whicked Phenmenon for sale]

Better deal from Tronster for sure, just seen it sell for $400 on FacialBook...

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The 2 different motherboards of the original PC Engine.]

No accompanying photos to prove your claims, help illustrate exactly what you mean ?? ;)

I noticed Aaron posted this picture today on our PCEFX Facebook page:



That would be the context of your thread I take it, that today is the 31st anniversary of the PC Engine ? And a day before Halloween, easy to remember, I didn't know that, heh.

Has it really now been 31 years since it began ? Feels hard to believe for some reason...

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Mister FPGA and PCE\TG16]

Mister FPGA ? Had to Google it.

I was wondering when we'll get a PCE/TG16 FPGA knockoff console considering all the other retro consoles of that era have. Original NEC hardware isn't gonna last indefinitely after all even with needed capacitor replacement.

Anyway, found this video by SmokeMonster to intro this "Mister" business.

http://retrorgb.com/introducing-mister-fpga-multi-console.html